BlizzCon: Battle.net Season 2 Changes

Exciting changes for Battle.net 2.0 were announced from the Secrets of the Master panel on StarCraft 2 at BlizzCon. Two of which are two new leagues.

Season 2 approaches, and with it, a ladder wipe as well. Greg Canessa assured players that their matchmaking rating would be preserved. This means that it will take a single placement match for players to be put back into their own leagues again.

There will be two new leagues, a Master League and a Grandmaster League. Players around the top 5% of the Diamond league will be placed into the Maser League. The Grandmaster league is reserved for the very elite top 200 players in each region, where players will enjoy much more exposure to the public.

Other new improvements include new UI elements to profile pages, new artwork that denotes a players rank within their division, and records of past seasons. As well, there will be a new featured replay section in the communities section in StarCraft 2. Top players will have their replays featured as well.

During the Secrets of the Masters panel, the balancing team of the StarCraft 2 development team took time out to do a presentation on how to master the art of StarCraft. Taking quotes from players such as HuK, QXC, Select, and DeMulsim, the StarCraft 2 development team took a more active approach in helping players improve their game.

David Kim was on the panel to answer questions and discuss about certain aspects of the game. David, who is the Game Balance Designer for StarCraft 2, was also complimented by Dustin Browder, being suggested as the best Random player in the world. Browder also announced that a special 1v1 match from a Blizzard internal tournament between Matt Cooper and David Kim would be made into a battle report and released in the future.

It was also reiterated by Greg Canessa that chat channels would be implemented in a forthcoming patch.

That matchmaker was also discussed, which is a system that tracks wins and losses and creates a hidden skill rating for a player over time. This is actually a rolling average composed of several different numbers. During the Q&A section of the panel, an attendee had asked whether these numbers would be revealed, Canessa replied with a no, as their are many numbers and he did not believe the numbers would actually be that interesting.

Links
Battle.net - Source